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NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

:siren: There are still a few thousand Raptr Reward Packs left, so qualify and snag them ASAP! See the next post for details




:frogsiren: Use this referral link to register (If we reach any decent prize level, it will contribute towards the GOON Clan-Exclusive Giveaway pool me and a couple of others are putting together.)

(EU goons: Register your new account through GameCoach.TV instead, you will get a bunch of free and very useful items. US goons should give it a try too, for some people it seems to work.)

:iamafag: Official Website :razz:

:steam: Download from Steam :gaben:

:spergin: Official Wiki :eng101:

:newfap: Official Forums :furcry: (for maintenance updates, giveaways and stuff)

:torgue: Blacklight Community League :smugspike:

:phoneb: GOON Mumble server: scud.typefrag.com:5285 :phone:





Blacklight: Retribution is a competitive multiplayer free-to-play FPS, developed by Zombie Studios as a sequel to the all-too-quickly-forgotten 2010 XBLA/PSN title Blacklight: Tango Down. Open beta began on February 27th, 2012, and the game went live April 3rd of that same year. It took until July 2nd for the game to make it's way to Steam, where it finally began to see a rise in popularity / player population. After some refinement in the gun mechanics, in January 2013 it was officially announced it would receive ladder and ranking support from the ESL eSports league, hopefully within the summer. BLR is currently PC exclusive, but will be ported to the PlayStation 4 as a launch title.

The game adopts a near-future theme, heavily inspired by the styles and themes of Ghost in the Shell and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with a sprinkle of Blade Runner’s dystopian cityscapes. Players don the cyborg-esque armour of more-than-special forces agents, wield tacticool® weapons ranging from close evolutions of real-life guns to futuristic artillery, and are dropped into freshly-evacuated or freshly-exterminated urban maps to do battle with each other in a variety of PvP game modes, or to hold off the hordes of SIVs (zombies by any other name) and the Order militants supporting them in the recently released Onslaught PvE mode.

There are three key features that distinguish Blacklight: Retribution from its competition in the multiplayer FPS scene:




  • The Hyper-Reality Visor (HRV): A universal wallhack that will reveal to you every relevant object on the map, including both ally and enemy players. Its limitations are a cooldown period between uses, and the fact that you cannot use your weapons while it’s active, meaning you will need to carefully choose when to activate it and when it’s safer to rely on your instincts. This adds a strong mind-game element to the classic FPS gameplay, and keeps the pace of the game steady, as everybody constantly plans their way around the map and attempts to outsmart everybody else. And as a nice bonus it makes the issue of campers null and void, since you can see right through where they’ve pitched their tents.



  • Customization: Many shooters claim to offer customization. Blacklight blows all of them out of the water. You have huge lists from which to mix and match the pieces of your armour, the tactical items you carry, the reward items you acquire during a match, and most prominently, every individual part of your weapons, from muzzles and barrels to scopes to magazines. You can be a slow tank with a big incendiary machine gun and an arsenal of mines and traps, or a suicidally-fast runner carrying an infrared sniper rifle and a brutal automatic shotgun. With few exceptions, there are no straight upgrades either: higher-level items and parts offer more options but each have their drawbacks. And like every good free-to-play title, all of this is available through in-game currency.



  • The Spice of Life: Sneak right behind your enemies’ back under an invisibility cloak. Chop them up with a katana, or cave in their skull with a spring-loaded hammer. Jab an explosive tomahawk into a player’s leg, then blow it up when they approach an enemy. Place a holographic copy of yourself just off a corner and flank the deceived attackers. Turn your riot shield into a fixed barricade and dump suppressive fire through the slit. Make your enemies BSOD with a shock grenade, then set them on fire with a flamethrower while their visors reboot. Poison them with toxic gas and watch them rush to the healing depot you had previously mined. Summon a combat bot and tag it with an airstrike designator as it beelines for the enemy camp. And from your very first match you can pilot the star of the game, the big-rear end mech called Hardsuit with its surgical railgun, murderous minigun, and fifteen thousand health. Few AAA shooters offer as many toys as Blacklight does.


The story, such as it is, was established in the previous title of the franchise, Tango Down, and is summed up in a rather cheesy motion comic. Short version: a militant organisation known as the Order has released the Sentient Insanity Virus in east Asia, turning hordes of civilian into mindless zombies. The secret international super-agents of Blacklight are left to clean up the mess and take down their renegade comrade Colonel Klein, who has become the leader of the Order.

As you may have guessed, BLR is not a story-driven game, and there currently aren't any MMO-style faction wars or anything of that sort. Zombie Studios’s efforts have focused on making a fun, balanced, and interesting multiplayer game that gives you the most “bang for your buck.” Which, for many of you out there, may be no bucks at all. As in, the game is free-to-play.

Another free-to-play FPS? No thanks!

Whoa there, pardner! Don't be so quick to write it off! Yes, the game is free-to-play, with microtransactions mostly serving as a means to "convenience." Every gameplay item in the game - all of the weapon parts and pieces of equipment - is buyable via in-game currency (GP), with mostly cosmetic items - such as camouflage and taunts - reserved for those willing to spend real money (ZEN). If you don't have the GP to buy an item or part permanently, you have the option of renting it, which does have the potential to leave you tangled in a web of timed rentals and expiration dates.

But if you go into the game with a game plan of sorts, knowing which weapons you're shooting for and what direction you're going to want to spec towards, you can map a pretty clear progression tree for yourself, and still leave room to experiment with other weapons and armors. Every weapon part and piece of armor has its advantages and disadvantages, including - and dare I say, "especially" - the later-level items. You're always making some sort of trade-off when it comes to customizing, whether it be sacrificing weapon damage for lower recoil, or equipment slots for better mobility. No amount of real-world money can change this rule, and as such, "pay-to-win" is NOT a major factor in this game.

As was said before: real money is spent towards convenience, allowing players to bypass the level caps and forego the rental plans on items. It doesn't necessarily mean that the weapons and armor they are getting earlier access to are "better" than yours. The goal in allowing so much customization is to allow players to spec in the direction they want to, knowing that they are always trading off certain other skills and traits. As such, no one build is guaranteed to rule over all the others, and a level 1 player can still easily kill a level 40 - if they have the skill to do so.

Oh god, I want to play this for free, I’ll have to grind for months to get any custom gear, won’t I?

Surprisingly enough, no. Blacklight has one of the fairest funbux pricing schemes and certainly one of the best gear-acquired-to-time-played ratios in the whole F2P world. For a start, every ten minutes you will complete a match and gain roughly from 120 to 200 GP, which even if there were nothing else would ensure a steady flow of a new permanent unlock every few hours of gameplay. But then there is a huge list of daily and even hourly missions which reward you for completing various achievements (from "headshot 25 enemies" to "cap 3 flags" to "revive 10 teammates") in the form of both direct GP prizes that with some planning can easily double your base income, as well as a silly amount of Mission Chance Packs with random rewards to keep things constantly fresh at zero cost (more on that later). Finally, every time you unlock new items at a level-up you get to try them for free for three days, meaning that you'll never have to worry about spending GPs on items that you haven't already tried and tested.

The experience grind is similarly gentle: level advancement is somewhere between linear and quadratic rather than the typical exponential, i.e. the cost of each level grows by a few thousand XP over the previous one’s. Your XP gain per ten-minute match is strictly dependant on your performance - from about a thousand at the worst, to four or five thousands for the team’s MVP - so there’s going to be a huge variability in your progress speed, but generally getting to the higher levels is going to be more a matter of dozens of hours than hundreds.

Screenshots



Goons in Action





Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkTM9Qun2S0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8nobNf96IU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aCpNKOsR3E

Habermann’s Video Corner :downs:


Kelmomas's Video Corner :hurr:


CapitanGarlic's Art Corner :sun:




Old thread here

NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Oct 16, 2013

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NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Current Promotions / Giveaways


  • Starting April the 26th, Raptr will be giving out a ton of poo poo to users who have registered enough hours played of BLR with them (by reports even Elite is really easy to get). If you don't have enough hours leave Blacklight + Raptr running a few nights, and if you don't live in an eligible country you can log in to Raptr.com through a proxy to qualify. The rewards are:

    • Newbie: Machine Pistol; Metallic Gold body camo (30-day); damage tag

    • Experienced: Bonebreaker helmet; Metallic Gold weapon camo (30-day); HRV recharge tag

    • Elite: AK470; premade "Metal Storm" shotgun; runspeed tag

  • New EU players (possibly US players too, reports are conflicting) can register their account through GameCoach.tv and get a bunch of really great free items. Suggestion: equip everything over your default gear except the extended barrel (once you have a +Damage weapon tag you may equip that one too) and the premade TSMG; remove your combat knife to make room for the extra grenade. Once you unlock level 5, stick the TSMG in your second loadout slot.





Where the goons at?

The clan system in BLR is, admittedly, kind of lovely. You have to be directly invited by an officer while you are both online in order to get your “in.” The old way of doing this involved sending one of our listed officers a friend request, and hoping they could psychically determine that you were a GOON hopeful. The new method dictates that you send a message to an officer via the in-game mail system, mentioning this thread as well as your favorite James Bond movie.

(If you are an officer currently listed as “Inactive?” who is actually still actively playing the game, give me a heads up.)

Where do we go to own lesser creatures and show off our e-p33ns?

While there are more than a few good players with our tag, the GOON clan is strictly dedicated to stomping pubs and shooting the poo poo - or was it stomping shits and shooting the pubs? Can't remember.

If you want to get into the serious-business side of BLR, a good place to start looking is Blacklight Community League. As the name implies it's so far entirely player-organised, since some key features for officially-sanctioned ESL competitive play (notably first-person spectates) are still in the developers' pipeline.

|GOON US OFFICERS

Beloved Founder: Carmyn (Inactive)

Fearless Leader: Habermann

SwitchbladeKult

Cirena

ProfessorGascan (Inactive?)

RomanHonesty

Fuzzlewhack

rayjenkins (Inactive?)

OhSH (Inactive?)

Scud (Inactive?)

nwf (Inactive?)

|GOON EU OFFICERS

The EU GOON clan is currently on indefinite hiatus. Sorry :(



Getting started



I hit the Play key in the launcher but the game doesn’t launch!

Try these possible fixes: http://blacklight-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=313141

Should I do the Training?

Yes. You don't want to be the guy who goes "ooh, I just found out what the V key does. That's why I kept getting smashed! :downs:" after weeks of playing the game (Not actually a FAQ, but it should be).

Also it gives you a bunch of trial items and some GP/XP as a reward.

Alright, done. Should I do some Practice mode?

Not really, the bots are pretty stupid. It’s mostly useful for doing quick gun testing and not much else.

Should I just hit Quick Play?

No. Instead look for a server with the label Proving Grounds and join it. These give you a 10% XP bonus but, much more importantly, they are restricted to players of level 10 and under. You will be able to learn the basics of the HRV, navigating the maps, dealing with Hardsuits etc. while greatly limiting the amount of weird stuff like invisible enemies, mines, OHK weapons you have to deal with (some of those can drop from mission chance packs or be bought with real money, but they're still way less common than on regular servers).

I want to join a friend / goon but the server is full. Do I have to keep mashing Join?

Use the Spectate button on your friends list to join the server as a spectator. Once you’re spectating click Join Game, and you’ll be entered into the match as soon as someone quits.

Any important settings I should be aware of?

Mostly the usual shooter stuff (FOV, smart keybinds, disable mouse acceleration, aim/run/crouch toggle, etc.), but a couple things are worth mentioning.

Under CONTROL, disable HRV Toggle. The HRV is a fundamental of Blacklight (play the tutorial) and the best way to use it is in quick, frequent checks. Disabling HRV Toggle will let you check HRV with one button press instead of two; if you need to take a longer look around, just hold the button down until you're done.

Under GAME, you will find the Recoil Reset option; if it’s on, after each burst the crosshair will jump back to where it was before the recoil pushed it. It’s a love it or hate it thing, but most people seem to prefer turning it off.

Under CROSSHAIR, there is a Static Crosshair option. This stops the crosshair from growing/shrinking to indicate your gun’s accuracy, instead it’s fixed at the centre of your screen 1996-style. It’s probably safer to turn this on after you have developed a good feeling for your guns and know the size of their cones-of-fire by heart (turn it off again when you’re experimenting with radically different builds).

Note that major patches will reset your video settings (resolution and various levels of visual bling), so you'll have to go set them back properly.

Also, there is an issue with crash logs fillind up disk space. Periodically check out your \Blacklight Retribution\Live\FoxGame\Logs folder because it can often fill up with memory dumps each of them a couple of gigabytes in size. You can safely delete them.

I’ve seen some videos where the crosshair is a single dot, how do I get that?

Set the number of ticks at 12, the tick length at 1 (small dot) or 2 (bigger dot), and enable Static Crosshair.

Is there any way I can further customise my HUD?

Yes: BL:R HUD Tweaker. Third-party program, so if you don’t trust it you can just look for other people’s FoxHud.ini files in that thread (probably better to look at the more recent pages in case old files have not kept up with the patches).




Customisation and economy



I hate wasting money on stuff that will expire, but buying things permanently is so expensive!

Remember this important fact: permanently purchasing an item costs as much as renting it for about a month. So unless you’re really sure that you will keep using that item for a long, long time, play it safe and just rent it for the week (or for three days for weapon parts). Not having an inventory full of mistakenly purchased crap will, in the long run, save you a lot more money.

What is the most efficient way to gain Game Points (funbux) quickly?

First, go to the website and click Community -> Facebook Connect. This will put a "I love BLR!" post on your FB wall (you can set it to be only visible to you, or just use a fake account) and give you 200 GP. You can do this once a day, so it basically pays for one item before you even start the game.

Now for the ingame GP gain. After each match, you gain an amount of GP based on the time elapsed (around 130 GP for a ten-minute match); a 20 GP bonus if your team won; and 2 GP for each kill you got, up to 30 GP max (15+ kills). Also note that for some mysterious reason, the day before the weekly patch (usually Tuesday or Wednesday) the time-based GP gain is often doubled without any fanfare whatsoever (and some servers don't get it for some reason); presumably it's a compensation of sorts for the downtime.

Anyway. What this means is that, in theory, the shorter the matches the better, because it means more chances to gain victory and kill bonuses. But since a large majority of your match GPs will come from time played, the difference is so small that you're barely losing anything by playing whichever modes you prefer. (Plus, you know, it's a game, not a job.)

No, the real way to gain GP stupidly fast comes from mission rewards...

(Ok, there is another: Onslaught matches. Slaughtering zombies on Medium and especially on Hard/Hardcore will give you silver and gold medals, which convert into GP tokens - more on that at the end of the OP. But it's not for everyone, and playing on Hard requires a semi-organized team.)

Missions. What about them?

Glad you asked. As of 2013-06-25, the big moneymaker missions are the following:

- I Would Sprint 500 Miles: This is the easiest mission in the game. 2000GP every week for just sprinting, and sprinting a distance that can be covered in a few hours. If you play the game any more than very sporadically, this reward is basically guaranteed without having to lift a finger.

- Behind Enemy Lines: Cap three flags (in CTF, not Netwar), get 500GP. It used to reset every three hours which made it a ridiculous cash source as long as you could log in multiple times per day, but now it's on a 24 hours timer. It's still very, very efficient because you can easily complete it in under 15 minutes (one or two matches). Never not do it.

- Winner!: First win of the day = 100GP, and that's nice. But there is a second mission with the same name that gives you 1000GP for ten wins in a day, which is really drat nice. Now, ten wins is a lot to do in one day if you have a life and aren't good enough to carry teams on your own, but since "a day" means 24 hours from the first win there is an obvious trick: get 5-6 wins late one evening, then the next day set your playtime a bit earlier and get the other 5.
If you're only a few wins away from completing the mission and short on time, you can also join matches that (a) are a couple minutes from ending and (b) have an EVEN number of players. Since you'll be the odd one out, you will then be able to immediately switch to the winning team and get a win in under two minutes. This is boring as hell, mind you.

The vast majority of the other missions give you one or two Mission Chance Packs, which aren't as sexy as GP rewards but shouldn't be discounted by any means. Possible rewards are, in a very rough order of likelihood:

  • Datanodes (if you ask "what are those?", scroll down), generally considered a trash reward
  • XP tokens (1000/2000/3000/5000)
  • 3-day XP/GP boosts (+5 or +10%, individual or team-shared)
  • 1-week Tactical Gear items or Depot items
  • GP tokens (100/200/500/1000)
  • 1-month taunts
  • 1-day, 1-week, or permanent weapon receivers
  • The holy grail: a Loadout Slot (1000ZEN)
  • The "eh, I'd rather have won a loadout slot" grail: an Onslaught Bronze Pack (unlocks almost everything in the game, including cosmetics, heroes, rare promos, etc. for one week)

(Note that all item rewards are immediately activated and can't be saved up or traded - yes, this means that if you win an item you already owned you can only trash it, I'm afraid. On the plus side, item rewards aren't level-dependent so if you win, say, an Anti-Materiel Rifle you can use it even if you aren't level 35.)

So as you can see, you can safely skip the lengthy or boring missions if all they give is a MCP, but it's definitely worth it to pay attention to the ones that are more in your way (like the "25 headshots" mission) or that won't take much time to complete (like the "heal at a depot 25 times" one). This goes double for new players, who can find a lot of items and weaponry in MCPs that they don't own or haven't even unlocked.

Bonus note: it's easy to overlook, but stacking the temporary GP boosts from MCPs with fusing a good +GP% datanode adds up to a neat little pile of cash, especially on the double-time-GP days that come before the weekly maintenance.

What is the most efficient way to gain XP and level up quickly?

Play Domination and hack a lot of nodes, you get 200XP per hack plus a constant bonus as long as that node is held by your team. NetWar is also good, as is King of the Hill if you actually stay to cap the node. Onslaught mode may be the best of all for XP (see its description at the end of the OP). Mission Chance Packs also award XP tokens fairly often, so the more the merrier.

And if you're just starting out, hit the Proving Grounds servers for a 10% XP boost.

How do I unlock more loadout slots?

Slot #2 is free at level 5. Slots #3 through #5 must be purchased for :10bux: (though they go on sales often), and there's a really really really small chance of winning one through Mission Chance Packs. Slot #6 is exclusive to Heroes, where it is locked to their (typically mediocre) premade weapons.

I have a job. Should I buy GP / XP boosters?

Absolutely not, they may be a good deal in other games but in Blacklight they're a waste of money.

Not only is the grind incredibly gentle compared to pretty much every other F2P title out there, but the boosters are relatively expensive and only last one week. You would be much better off directly purchasing the high-level items you want instead.

Ok, what should I buy with real cash then?

Loadout slots are probably the safest choice and the only thing everybody will use, you can never have enough guns :pcgaming: and switching mid-game is neat and pimp. They go on sale relatively often, so wait for one. After that, you can pretty much just get some cosmetic items you like.

Everything else can be acquired with GPs, and in a "you'll perma-purchase everything you need long before you hit max level" way and not a "by the heat death of the universe" way. If you have cash you can acquire stuff you like ahead of time, but never purchase any game item blind, and ideally not before you’ve played with it for a few days.

If you really want to acquire a bunch of useful items at once, the Assault Kit is full of good stuff and is great value for its money; purchasing a Hero (see below) is also a strong option if there's one that fits your style. Though if you like the game enough that you'd drop :20bux: on it, you will probably also play enough to make your build with GPs only.

Alright, my level is in the teens and I've saved up a bunch of funbux. What is the first item I should purchase permanently?

For the longest time the Heal Injector has been the safest first purchase for new players. However, now that Mission Chance Packs ensure regular players will basically always have something nice to place in the tactical gear slot, I don't consider that to be the case any more. You can safely delay the 12500GP expense of your first backpack until you've hit level 21 and tried out the Cloak and Barricade, at least. Unless of course it deeply annoys you to be at the mercy of the RNG for your choice of backpack, in which case feel free to go ahead with the heal injector.

Past that, the following is what you should acquire in order to un-gently caress your starter gear:

  • Buy a good scope to replace the default ironsight. There are good choices all over the level spectrum, and which one you like best is largely a matter of taste. They're cheap so don't worry too much about it.
  • Get your health away from the dreadful number "200", which is perfect for dying to the default 50-damage rifle, as well as machetes, knives, and every weapon built by people who want to slaughter newbies. If one of your level-up packs included a +Health weapon tag you can just equip that and call it a day, otherwise I recommend buying a heavy helmet like the Allied Ranger (don't buy chest or legs since mid-high level heavy gear is slightly better).
  • Buy a secondary receiver to replace the lovely light pistol. (Yeah, you can get them from mission packs too but nowhere near as reliably as backpacks). The revolver is a very safe and top-tier choice.
  • Replace the basic combat knife with basically any other gear item that isn't the HRV Decoy. Though since there is a lot of gear items spread out all over the level progression, you'll probably get a lot of mileage out of trial packs before this becomes an issue. Safe choices are the HE or Shock grenades.

If you are the gambling type you may want to consider skipping all of that and instead trying to win the Crusher hero instead; CTRL-F her name for details. The average math makes that an attractive option, but don't break down and cry if instead of saving 20k GP you end up wasting 20k GP.

Where can I find out what a scope looks like without renting it?

Here. It doesn't include the two new infrared scopes unfortunately, but they're high level so by the time you unlock them you should be able to just burn 150GP. They look like the Silverwood CH-X25 RM and the EMI Fused Image-7, respectively.

Remember, you get a free 3-day trial of each item when you unlock it, so you should only need the above links if you want to use cash to purchase them ahead of time, or for later reference.

What is the difference between active and inactive items?

1) Inactive items can be gifted to other players (at a cost of 25 ZEN). Active items are bound to your account.

2) The timer on temporary items starts ticking down once they become active. (There is no way to deactivate active items, in case you were wondering.)

What are Datanodes? And what is this Fusion stuff?

Datanodes are minor, time-limited buffs that serve as either a GP sink for high-level players who have nothing left to purchase, or as a lovely consolation prize when you fail to win anything else from chance packs. Most of them are very situational (Fall Damage Reduction) or barely noticeable (Scope Blackout Time), but a few are actually strong nodes (Normal Ammo Damage/Resistance, Weapon Spread). They can provide grinders with an edge in pub matches - although you abandon any and all e-peen claims by using strong nodes, and will often invite mockery - but of course they’re always disabled or banned in competitive play and in almost all private servers, so try not to get used to playing with them.

Fusion is the process of making stronger or longer-lasting nodes from weaker ones. It is explained in the wiki. If you have a bunch of nodes lying around from chance packs or daily missions, fusing them into a +XP Gain or +GP Gain boost is a good way to get something you can use without any concerns, since they do not directly affect gameplay.

Parts have stats but I don’t understand what’s good for my weapon! :ohdear:



There are three stats that impact how a gun handles. The stats that you control are Recoil and Spread. Spread is broken down further into two types of spread, Hip-Spread and Aim-Spread. Their mechanics work exactly the same except one is a noticeably smaller because it’s simulating your agent looking down his sights and aiming. The stat you can’t control is “spread pattern”.

Each receiver has a “spread pattern” that it follows as you fire the weapon continuously. This can not be changed and is different for each receiver. This is similar to how things are done in CounterStrike. Think about it like this, if you walk up to a wall with the HAR and fire until your magazine is empty the shape left on the wall will look like a downsie letter ‘Z’. What about those stats I can control? I’m getting to that!

Recoil impacts how spread out from one another the “ideal” bullet will land along that pattern. In the example above, the higher your recoil on your HAR the taller and wider that ‘Z’ will get because your bullets will be spaced further apart. The lower your recoil the closer the bullets will be to one another and the shorter and skinnier your ‘Z’ will be.

Spread determines how far away the bullets will possibly fall from your “ideal” landing spot, basically where the bullet would land along your ‘Z’ if you have 0.0 degree spread. Where the bullets fall is determined randomly but the size of “zone” is determined by the spread stat. Think of your spread as the radius of a circle drawn around your “ideal” and your bullet will fall somewhere inside that circle. The higher your spread the fuzzier your ‘Z’ pattern is going to look. The lower you make your spread the sharper your ‘Z’ pattern is going to look.

(Thanks to SwitchbladeKult for this explanation)

What about range?

Range - which is usually tied directly to Spread - works about as you would expect: after your bullets go past the “effective range” (the first number, measured in metres), they gradually deal less and less damage, down to the minimum of 10% once they surpass the “maximum range” (the second number, still in metres).

Are premade weapons a good idea?

There are two situations when renting them is a really good idea: one is when you're a huge newbie and don't have a good grasp of what stats mean, so you might as well save some funbux instead of buying parts you don't understand. The other is when you really want to use a particular primary weapon but you can't afford it permanently, and you didn't get it for free through the Weekly Weapon Pack or Mission Chance Packs.

Many of them are crappy traps though, so stick to the ones listed under "Recommended Premade" for each receiver further down in this OP.

And never ever spend the ZEN to buy them permanently. You will regret it when you start building your own guns.



Gameplay



I keep getting killed out of nowhere!

Use the HRV more.

I already use it a lot!

No you aren't. Use it more. Do a real quick 360 scan every time you hear the "WOOM" sound of a complete recharge and you're not currently being shot at. Also, don’t stand out in the open while doing it.

What is the HRV? :downs:

Do the goddamn Training.

My rifle sucks! Everybody kills me in an instant but when I point at them and shoot it takes forever for them to die!

No, the default assault rifle is awesome, you're just using it wrong. Never blindly hold the mouse button down unless your target is close enough to kiss, because the recoil gets harsh quickly. At medium range you should fire quick bursts of 2-4 bullets, and at long range you should fire a single bullet at a time. Do that and you'll have an amazing weapon that will love you everywhere.

My pistol sucks!

Yeah it sucks, sorry (everybody's been pestering the devs forever about it). Rent a revolver.

Holy poo poo how do I kill those mechs? They're scary!

The key is that you can't use HRV inside a hardsuit. (There's a tactical gear item that lets you do a sonar-ish thing, but it's almost never used). Given that the maps are full of cover everywhere, this makes them virtually sitting ducks if you can watch your rear end. So stay out of their sight until you have purchased a Stinger rocket or a flamethrower (note: the rocket is generally the better/safer choice. It comes with two rockets, each deals 10k damage, hardsuits have 15k health). Once you have purchased it, don't attack them head-on for the love of God. Always attack them from the flank or the back, which is pretty easy because no HRV, remember? Any agents on foot will be a far greater danger than the suit itself.

You might remember from Training that all hardsuits have a randomised weak point, visible in the HRV, where you can deal increased damage - 10x damage, in fact. While it’s entirely possible to kill hardsuits with regular guns this way, at least if they’re not supported by allies and if the weak point is on the back or sides, it is a LOT harder and you should not attempt this until you’ve acquired some experience. Stick to Stingers and flamethrowers for a bit.

(Also remember that in Deathmatch and Kill Confirmed modes there's no real hurry to actually deal with a hardsuit until you get the perfect opportunity. As with every bad engagement, remember: You CAN Just Run Away.)

Whoohoo! I got to 1300CP! Wait, why does the hardsuit caller not work?

The hardsuit is air-dropped, so you need open sky above the drop location. No roofs, no structures, nothing. (Yes this means you cannot drop hardsuits on Metro.) Also teammates can interrupt the beam if they run through it.

I threw a Revival Injector on a guy but he didn’t get up!

The player being revived can decline to stand up, instead using the regular respawn (or a Respawn Beacon if he had one). Given that revived players get up with half health and do not get an ammo/gear refill, refusing can be an entirely sensible choice if they have no particular urge to be exactly at that spot right now. In particular, revivals should rarely be used in TDM or KC.

How do I use the Heal Injector on myself?

Right click. This uses the whole charge, too, so you need it to be completely full.

And for the love of God, if you are near a wounded teammate heal him before you go hide and heal yourself.

How do I pick up a Barricade after deploying it?

Look at its bottom and the interaction should appear.

NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jan 16, 2014

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

A Guide To Your Blacklight: Retribution Toys

Equipment




  • Helmets, in addition to health and speed (and stamina), also affect your armour and HRV stats. Armour is your protection against headshots (and only headshots), which deal twice the damage reduced by your armour stat. So if you have 10% armour, a headshot deals 90% * 2 = 180% as much damage to you. Helmets with stronger armour generally have worse HRV recharge and duration, and vice versa. There are also three speed-oriented Hazmat helmets which provide protection from elemental damage, at the cost of some HRV recharge.

    In most cases, a heavy helmet of some sort (the Allied Ranger is a safe choice) is all the armor you will want to purchase while you’re learning, since it puts you past the default 200 health that lots of weapons are aimed at. Once you’re in your 20s you can start figuring out if you like speed or heavy builds.



  • Chests and legs affect your health, speed, stamina, and number of gear slots.

    Generally more speed and less health = more stamina, also fewer gear slots = more stamina. However, the numbers curve weirdly and in some cases are not correctly balanced (eg the Piranha legs are strictly worse than Colossus legs). Until this gets fixed, pay attention to your options.
    • There is an :siren: Armor Optimizer :siren: fan-made program if you want to figure out the most efficient parts for your needs. Or just go with whatever looks cool.




  • Tactical gear, aka the backpack item, represents a major part of your loadout and is key to determining your playstyle and role within team play beyond "shoot bad guys". Since they're expensive items, it's worth going into detail for each one:

    • Revival injector: Throw it at dead teammates to let them get up immediately (with half health). Awesome in pretty much every objective mode, particularly if you're a good guy who cares more about winning than about his K/D.
    • Repair tool: Lets you repair hardsuits, turrets, barricades, and the tank in Siege mode. Since all but the last one are pretty disposable this is a terrible and useless backpack in anything but Siege matches, where it owns.
    • Ammunition pod: Drops a single (!) ammo pack that refills the ammo and grenades of the first player to walk over it. I.e. saves you one (1) trip to the depot. This is a horrible backpack that should never be bought for any reason.
    • Heal injector: Left click to heal allies for 100 points (costs 1/5th of the energy), right click to heal yourself for 50 points (costs the full energy). It's a great equipment for pretty much any build or situation and a very safe first purchase.
    • Hardsuit Battle Mode: Can give your hardsuit or Siege tank 10 seconds of major resilience. Unfortunately it takes ~1 second to activate so it's almost impossible to protect them from rockets, which are the major threat from any competent team; the recharging is also stupidly slow. All in all a very niche item.
    • Hardsuit HRV Ping: Lets you do a periodic sonar-like scan of the area while in a hardsuit or tank. Nowhere near as good as the real HRV, and slow as balls to boot, this is a lovely item that should never be bought.
    • Cloak Mk.1: Lets you turn invisible to the eye (but not to HRV or infrared scopes), though you can't shoot or use items and there's a noticeable shimmer especially when you sprint. It's pretty useful to avoid being noticed while hacking objectives or to cross dangerously open areas, but ninja-assassination is mostly effective against newer players who don't instantly react to the uncloaking sound. Not a bad item by any means.
    • Barricade Mk.1: Hold to (mostly) protect you from bullets unless they hit the slit or your feet (also bash for 125 damage :black101:), deploy to have a stationary and very resilient wall. THE SHIELD is a goon favourite with tons of fun applications, from blocking hallways to safely carrying the flag to just camping out a node in style. Common misconception: carrying it on your back does not protect you from being shot from behind.
    • Barricade Mk.2: AKA the riot shield, this is a lighter version of the barricade that won't slow you down or obstruct your view, but can't be deployed. Completely amazing for flag runners, but not much else. The perma-purchase option is real cash only (can be rented with funbux).
    • Cloak Mk.2: A slight tweak on the cloak that will keep you "dark" on infrared sights, but has the massive drawback of only staying active for 10 seconds at a time - although it does also recharge much faster. Not a great tradeoff overall, especially since the anti-infrared patch exists. Same market options as the Barricade Mk.2.
    • Respawn beacon: Drop to let you respawn where you left it (unless an enemy finds it and destroys it) rather than at a regular spawn point. A simple item, quite useful on large maps for camping or to make more attempts at capping the enemy flag.
    • HRV Cloak: Temporarily hides you from the HRV view (unless you're really close); a little trickier to use than the regular cloak due to the lengthy activation and needing to stay out of sight, but MUCH more effective for ambushing enemies. Can't be permanently purchased (either with funbux or real money), only rented week by week; fortunately it's a common drop from mission chance packs.
    • Firewall Breach Kit aka the Hack-a-Pack: Makes the hacking minigame trivially fast, doubles the time before an enemy can hack the node back, and gives you a noticeable buff to HRV recharge. A very specialised item that is king of the DOM game mode and makes Siege gates much less of a pain.





  • Gear items are loaded into the slots that your chest and legs provide (from zero to four). Most of them are single-use, though they can be refreshed at a depot with an Ammo Refill (100CP). They fall into a few categories:


    • Melee weapons. Very fun but not terribly effective compared to, say, a SMG or a shotgun. The combat knife (and the Mk.2 which is a straight upgrade) swings fast but is otherwise poo poo since you can bash with your gun or with a thrown weapon (see below) for similar results; the machete has a much longer lunge and deals 200 damage, although it's slow to equip; and the breach hammer kills in one hit (and does triple damage to hardsuits as well) but it doesn't lunge and needs to have its spring reloaded after every hit. The hammer is your best bet, particularly if you have a fast build that can make up for the lack of a lunge.

    • Thrown weapons can double as melee weapon (swing with right click), although they aren't as effective as a machete or hammer. When thrown, the knives (5 shots) deal 200 damage at potentially infinite range, the sonic tomahawk (1 shot) instakills, the shuriken (3 in one shot) deal 50 damage and stun - and can stick to walls for 15 seconds as nearly invisible traps - while the tomahawk (1 shot) deals 200 damage and can be exploded like a weak grenade. Shurikens and explosive tomahawks were overpowered for the longest time and got FINALLY nerfed in the August patch, but you may expect some rage to persist about them :getin:

    • Grenades are quite straightforward items. Frag deals damage, HE concentrates the damage tighter, Shock deals less damage but adds a brief blinding/BSOD effect; these are the main ones. Toxic creates a poison cloud that deals major damage over time, won't kill very often but is invaluable for clearing critical spots or stopping pursuers. EMP and Digi deal very little damage but the former causes a longer BSOD and the latter (the only grenade that comes with two shots) creates a digital 'smoke cloud'; neither is as good as a lethal grenade but they have their uses.

    • Dropped items might as well be called Traps, as they are the trickster's core arsenal. The HRV Blackout is the standout and a pillar of serious play, creating a bubble that blanks HRV detection (but is visible to the naked eye), hiding a player or other items in this category. The Proximity Mine is what you'd expect and a major source of angry chat logs, especially when dropped inside a blackout or in the path of a running pursuer. The Stun Mine is its poor cousin and largely overshadowed by the more versatile shurikens (above). The HRV Decoy creates an illusion in the HRV that won't fool anyone but total newbies, making it a completely useless item; however, the Personal Holo-Decoy creates a far more effective visual hologram (right click for standing still, left click for running ahead) and might easily be the most funny item in the entire game.

    • Patches are passive items that give limited protection (16-20%) against specific damage types, and annoyingly can't be permaently purchase but only rented weekly. The anti-explosive patch is by far the best, anti-fire and anti-melee will save your rear end once in a while(and are amazing in Onslaught), and anti-toxic and anti-electro are a waste of funbux. The anti-infrared patch is a new addition that makes you dark on infrared scopes, and pretty much only makes sense in pairing with the Cloak Mk.1.



  • Depot items are what you buy at depots with points scored during matches. Your default selection is pretty solid; when you first try out new items, they should probably replace the flamethrower since it is a bit redundant (the rocket is generally a much easier way to kill a hardsuit) but it can burn enemies pretty fast and it lets you steal hardsuits so it can still be nice.

    The function of most depot items is straightforward - big gun, turret, bigger gun, etc. - so I won't bother listing them, especially since they drop from mission packs like candy, but a few tips:

    • Health Refill: After you've bought something else, if you're not in a hurry and have plenty of spare CP, activate the depot again and buy a Health Refill. In an emergency this will let you heal faster by quickly hitting E -> Space.

    • The Ammo Refill will also reload your grenades and mines/blackout/decoy (if they've been destroyed already), which is actually its primary attractiveness, since if you were just out of bullets you could always pick up a weapon from a dead player. Weapons purchased at the Depot won't be reloaded, you need to equip and use the Heavy Weapon Refill for that.

    • Katana: Left click to lunge ahead (275 damage), right click for a slash (200 damage). Even though you can "charge" the lunge while sprinting, spamming the slash is generally the better choice since it's so drat quick.

    • Bear Claw Grenade Launcher: its grenades will always explode 0.5s after the first time they bounce - no matter how long it takes. So you cannot have grenades explode over somebody's head no matter how long the arc, and if you fire on the floor close to you the grenade will explode almost immediately. Treasure this knowledge, because it is key to turning 12 grenades into 12 bullshit inescapable kills, rather than just spamming an ineffectual rain like most pubbies do.

    • Trident Minigun: If you crouch, it becomes extremely accurate.

    • Brimstone Airstrike: The targeting dart can be stuck on players (and Hardsuits) and the airstrike will follow them. Enemy players might be smart enough to run indoors, nulllifying the weapon, but an ally with a dart in it can also chase the enemies in safety thanks to the lack of friendly fire.

    • Ghost Railgun: It may be the only weapon in the game that goes through targets, so you can enfilade enemies, and more importantly, you can hit a hardsuit’s weak point even if it’s on the other side. Also: it’s not a hitscan weapon, although it’s extremely fast, so you may need to lead targets a tiny bit.

    • Hardsuit/Assault Bot Caller: Needs to be called somewhere where there's no roof or other object in the way, otherwise it will fail or in some cases (used to happen on Vortex) the hardsuit will get stuck on the way down. This means it can't be used at all on Metro, by the way, since the whole map is underground. Allies running in front of you will also interrupt the call, so try not to use it too close to a spawn point. Very occasionally the caller will 'freeze' and nothing happens even though all lights are green; switch your weapon back and forth and try again.

    • Using the Hardsuit: You can fire both weapons simultaneously, which is key in particular to winning hardsuit duels (another important trick is to fire all over the enemy's body and look for the blue sparks that mark the weak point); reloading manually will reload both weapons at once, though, so be careful. You can strafe left-right while boosting, which is important since it lets you boost even through not-perfectly-straight paths. Exiting the hardsuit is instant, and re-entering (if it's yours) is very quick, so always jump out if a flamethrower user catches you in the back but he's alone, or when your hardsuit falls down to 500 health or so in regular combat (escaping a rocket in the same way may be possible but I've never been fast enough to pull it off). Finally, if you have a gaming mouse, switch to the maximum sensitivity settings when piloting a hardsuit, it will let you turn that much faster (this is even more of an advantage with the Scorpion tank in Siege).



Weapons




  • Receivers are the "core" of each weapon. They automatically come with a default set of the other parts (even the ones that aren't on the starter assault rifle, e.g. receiver-specific magazine, bullpup stock).



  • Muzzles affect damage, accuracy, and recoil. They apply to almost all primary and secondary weapons.

    A few muzzles are labelled as "suppressors" rather than the default "flashbrake". Weapons with a suppressor make a much quieter sound and have a greatly reduced muzzle flash. Muzzle flash is visible when hipfiring or when aiming with an open scope, but not when aiming with a closed or zoom scope; also, on some maps the flash is much brighter and more annoying than on others (your graphics settings may also affect this).

    There is no inherent drawback to using a suppressor, but you are limited to a much smaller selection of muzzles (all but one reduce damage, and all but one reduce accuracy).



  • Barrels affect damage, accuracy, and running speed. They apply to almost all primary weapons; pistols and shotguns also have their own sets of barrels.

    Many barrels include an iron sight of some sort at the front. When you aim, this will overlap with your scope if it's an open scope, but not if it's closed or zoom. Some open scopes will align nicely with the front sight, others will not, which can be annoying. Unfortunately, Zombie has refused to remove the sights from the barrel models, so you can either deal with it, switch to a closed scope, or tweak your build to use a nicer barrel.



  • Magazines affect reload speed, running speed, and ammo count; elemental ammo can have other effects. All magazines are specific to their particular receiver.

    Quick, express, and light magazines are all straight upgrades over the standard magazines for their respective weapons. The exceptions are the LMG-R, where the three normal-ammo options are all balanced; and the shotguns, where the "default" magazine consists of manually loading individual shells, which is very slow but lets you fire after even a single shell has been loaded, and also has a big running speed bonus.

    Elemental ammo are high-level options, have slightly worse reload and running speed stats than even the standard magazine, can only be rented and never be permanently purchased (not even with real cash!), and can be banned in premium servers (and usually are). You'd then expect them to be horribly overpowered - instead, they almost universally suck, with a few exceptions. There are five times of elemental ammo:


    • Explosive ammo deals 80% as much damage as normal, but makes an annoying noise when you get hit by it, and prevents you from being revived if you're killed by it. It's terrible unless you only care about being annoying.

    • Toxic ammo deals 40% as much damage as normal, then another 40% over a veeeeeeerryyyy long time period; both are upgraded to 50% if the victim is already poisoned (ie after the first bullet). It also causes an annoying visual effect and some minuscule damage to allies who stand near a poisoned victim. It's terrible unless you only care about being annoying.

    • Electro ammo deals 90% as much damage as normal, but deals 110% damage to enemies zapped by stunning effects and to mechanical enemies, and it also causes a slightly annoying visual effect. It's terrible.

    • Incendiary ammo deals 70% as much damage as usual, and another 40% over several seconds for a total of 110%. Most pubbies throw an absolute shitfit whenever you use incendiary ammo, which alone can be a good reason to use it. In reality, though, it's a terrible choice, because while it is slightly better at killing enemies, it's also going to give enemies a lot more time to kill you i.e. it will get you killed a lot. The only gun on which it's unquestionably good is a max-damage bolt action rifle, since you can fire a shot then hide while the burn damage does its work, but a max-damage bolt action rifle is significantly inaccurate so it's a pretty hit-and-miss tactic. (literally).

    • Magnum ammo has no special effects, but improves damage and range (only range, not spread) at the cost of recoil and running speed. For the majority of weapons the tradeoff is bad as you'll be able to get the same damage rating through muzzles and barrels with less penalties, but on a few primary receivers and on most secondaries magnum ammo lets you reach higher damage values than otherwise. Or perhaps you don’t care about recoil at all, so it becomes a viable option.








  • The most important thing you will want to know about Scopes is what they look like (though you will get a 3-day trial of each as you unlock them), so I'm just going to link to the wiki page for reference.

    There are two types of scopes: open (mostly under 3x zoom factor) and closed (which includes those described as "zoom" or "infrared"; mostly with zoom factor 3x or greater). Open scopes are faster but leave you exposed to muzzle flash unless you use a silenced muzzle, and the barrel's front sight may get in the way; aiming with a closed scope is slower and has a brief "black-out" transition, but avoids those issues.

    A few high-level closed scopes are marked as infrared, and they highlight friends and enemies as shown in the picture above. The downside is that they are slower and have lovely inaccurate awkward crosshairs; there are also a couple of items that make you almost invisible to infrared vision, but they are rarely used.

    Since people keep asking that question: there is no "best scope", it's a matter of preference. And since people keep asking that question anyway, the most popular scope is the Silverwood CONS ELO-Tech (level 12), followed by the OPRL Reflex-2 Holo (level 15), with a probable third the Lightsky ELO-Tech R6 (level 24).



  • Stocks affect accuracy, recoil, and running speed. The main set of stocks applies to almost all primary weapons and several secondary weapons; there is a separate set of bullpup stocks that are only used by the burstfire rifle and the bullpup full-auto. Bullpup stocks can affect reload speed in addition to the other stats (since they include the magazine well).

    You can mount stocks on light and heavy pistols, but only after you've put a custom barrel on them; such modded pistols are sometimes called carbines. This has the bonus effect that open scopes will now look the proper size instead of being tiny when you aim (because you're now resting the weapon against your shoulder instead of extending your arm).

  • One final, important note: since the August patch, a weapon's running speed modifier (determined by receiver, barrel, magazine, and stock) also directly affects its move-spread and scope-in time stats. So a heavy-rear end weapon may fire bigger bullets with better accuracy and less recoil, but in addition to slowing you down it's going to suck at circle-strafing in close quarters and at quickscoping. This is extra relevant for fat player builds, which used to be able to merrily run the biggest and heaviest weapons because they would hit the minimum speed cap of 7.00 anyway; the free lunch has now been considerably reduced.


A Big Table Of How Many Bullets It Will Take To Kill Some Of The Most Common HP Totals (credit to sharyth from the official forums):

When you first build your guns, you'll probably want to build a "pubstomper" i.e. a gun tuned against the 200HP default build which is by far the most common (so 40/50/67 damage). It's also worth taking a look at what hero is currently featured in the free rotation, as that will be a popular encounter (eg if Lilith = 237HP is free, 40/48/60 become much better steps). As you become more experienced, pubbies in default gear won't be much of a threat so it may be more efficient to aim for whatever build is in fashion for the e-peen crowd (currently that would be a 224HP build, so 38/45/56 damage).



Primary Weapons

Sorted by recommended range of engagement, from closest to farthest.

  • Tactical Sub-Machine Gun (TSMG)



    Level required for GP purchase: 20; also available via 200 GP chance pack, at any level

    Effective range: Short

    Rating: Medium

    Best premade: "Enforcer"

    General tips: If you like to zip around at near-max speed and not worry too much about pesky things like "recoil management" or "right click", this is the gun for you. Stupidly accurate with no recoil, but also no range and little damage - you REALLY REALLY want to be tricky and catch enemies off-guard because you will lose fair fights.

    Build tips: Max damage muzzle and tag for 36 damage are a must. Extended magazine highly recommended, although magnum is an option if you don't waste ammo.

    Eargasm rating: 8/10. A pleasant high-techy firing sound accompanies one of the best reloads in the game. Click-cluck-tch-click!

  • Sub-Machine Gun (SMG)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1

    Rating: Medium-low

    Best premade: "Blaster"

    General tips: Appropriately for the oldest of the SMGs, this gun is a middle-of-the-road approach between the TSMG's tame breeze and the M4X's wild tornado. Customization allows you to tweak it to your tastes, but I would recommend first making sure that none of the other, more specialized CQC guns fits your style.

    Build tips: Figure out how much recoil you're willing to deal with, then squeeze as much damage as possible while keeping Spread-Move under three degrees, preferably with a good margin.

    Eargasm rating: 5/10. It sounds like a wet fart and the reload is fairly wimpy. The silenced version is much better, at least.

  • Burst-Fire Sub-Machine Gun (BFSMG)



    Level required for GP purchase: 32; also available via 100 GP chance pack at any level (this will on average be much cheaper than a direct purchase) or in Lilith's 100ZEN premium skin chance packs

    Rating: High

    Best premade: ”Ranger”

    General tips: Despite it firing in 4-round bursts, this quirky gun actually beats the regular automatic SMG handily in terms of damage-per-second, and if that wasn't enough it gains a major boost in range and aiming accuracy. Agile enemies might become a little trickier to handle without spray-and-pray, but the other benefits of the gun are so significant that it's very worth putting in the effort to learn it.

    Build tips: Combining a damage muzzle, a damage tag, and magnum ammo (conveniently provided for cheap by the same 100GP chance packs from which you got the receiver) gives you a 50-damage build that is one of the scariest weapons in the game, and it's hard to recommend anything else. Its only flaw is an ammo shortage (7 bursts), but frankly I'd reach for a machine pistol or even a melee weapon before I'd bother with a quick/extended magazine.

    Eargasm rating: 6/10. Decent reload, but the firing is kind of stuttery and awkward.

  • M4X



    Level required for GP purchase: 15

    Rating: Very high

    Best premade: There’s only one, and it's pretty good.

    General tips: If the BFSMG wasn't up to your taste, the M4X offers a similar package - even more damage, more range, more accuracy - with a different tradeoff: a bit of slowdown, and a TON of recoil. Horizontal recoil. This is the first gun in the list that really requires you to control the barrel, but if you rise to the challenge you're getting a beast that absolutely shreds in brawls and isn't weak when you need to aim either.

    Build tips: The impression I get is that there's two kinds of M4X users: those who try to bargain with the recoil, and end up frustrated because it's harsh even at minimum, and those who suck it up and accept having to restrain their spraying at times (or to pray for a lucky recoil-into-headshot). If you're the former, I'd suggest looking at the SMG instead. If you're the latter, don't feel obligated to go for the 50-damage build; unlike with the BFSMG, the tradeoffs here are very noticeable and investing in some accuracy and/or speed is probably a good idea.

    Eargasm rating: 3/10. It feels like you got a bee in your ear, and it doesn’t so much reload as fall apart and need maintenance.

  • Bullpup Full-Auto (BFPA)



    Level required for GP purchase: 29

    Rating: Medium

    Best premade: N/A

    General tips: The BPFA offers very high mobility, excellent hipfire, and low recoil, at the cost of reduced lethality and range; it's basically the TSMG equivalent in the medium range category. Fast players will enjoy having a bit more versatility as they zip around the map, but most people will gravitate to the AK or AR instead.

    Build tips: I'll be honest, I find the BPFA's recoil non-existent (and what little there is, is almost entirely vertical) so I shove on it all the max-recoil parts at the very right of the list, magnum mag included, and call it a day as I dump 56 damage at 2.29° move spread. But if that doesn't work for you, you can - and should - keep a respectable 52-53 damage with just the damage muzzle, after which you still have a good deal of move spread to trade for speed or recoil.

    Eargasm rating: 6/10. The vote comes from the average of the firing sound, which is an excellent kick-y effect, with the reload one, which is a horrible cheap plastic tweaking that makes the gun feel about to break every time you press R.

  • Assault Rifle (AR)



    Level required for GP purchase: Default weapon.

    Rating: Very high

    Best premade: No need, just buy a good scope

    General tips: Nowadays it's harder and harder to find a top-level player not using an assault rifle specced for high accuracy and move-spread, which is currently the one gun in the game that combines a strong hipfire (in the low 3 degrees) with a range in the 50s and the accuracy to hit there. Sure, the recoil is harsh, but not much harsher than most M4Xes. Since most maps feature a good spectrum of ranges of engagement, the AR's versatility is extremely valuable.

    Build tips: As mentioned, 50 damage with near-max accuracy is king; high damage builds are still viable but they're overshadowed by the AK, while low-recoil builds with high capacity magazines have been savagely nerfed by the August patch.

    Eargasm rating: 6/10. A loud crackling that isn't actually annoying, but definitely isn't particularly enjoyable either.

  • AK470 (AK)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1

    Rating: Very high

    Best premade: There’s only one, and it's pretty good (try to aim more often than you hipfire though)

    General tips: In theory, the AK is an AR that has more drastic tradeoffs in every direction. In practice, these tradeoffs are easily exploited to make a gun very similar to your favourite AR build but with four to six more points of damage. The main culprit is probably the recoil which, while potentially harsh, only really kicks in after the 3rd-4th bullet, so you'll get a lot of kills from the initial blast. The AK isn't a straight upgrade to the AR, which is much better at sustained bursts, but it's sufficiently better that its competitive ban is understandable.

    Build tips: Keep the damage on the high side, 54 or higher; if you stick to 50-ish then the equivalent AR will start to become competitive due to their superior spraying, and don't even think about going sub-50. Asides from that, you'll be trading aiming ability (heavy parts with good recoil) versus hipfire ability (light parts with good speed), and that trade can go either way.

    Eargasm rating: 8/10. Sounds great in first person, a satisfying crack with a slight reverb effect, with a reload similar to the HAR. It gets dinged because when someone else fires it the sounds are compressed and muddy.

  • Light Machine Gun (LMG)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1

    Rating: Low

    Best premade: ”Source Code”

    General tips: As a longtime fan of this mobile turret and its ridiculous 47450 damage per minute, it makes me sad to admit that it barely even qualifies as a niche gun. Yes, you can crouch to counteract the low accuracy. Yes, you can prefire to sink the harsh initial recoil. But now that the last patch has also made it effectively impossible to hipfire the LMG, the drawbacks are just too big to justify saving a single bullet in kill time. Onslaught zombies, and some Helodeck or Metro matches, may provide enough packed enemies to make the huge mags useful, but that's about it.

    Build tips: For Onslaught, where it's hard not to hit something, I'd still bring a max-damage low-recoil LMG with incendiary ammo. In regular matches, other goons have had some success with ultralight kamikaze builds.

    Eargasm rating: 5/10. The burping noise it makes while firing is menacing but, from the gunner's point of view, uninspiring, and the reload is a clunky mess.

  • Light Machine Gun Recon (LMG-R)



    Level required for GP purchase: 28

    Rating: Low

    Best premade: "Stallion"

    General tips: You could think of this gun as a LMG that actually lets you move - it can hipfire as well as any SMG! - at the cost of a huge damage reduction. But it’s maybe better to think of it as a HAR that doesn’t punish you for spamming, thanks to huge magazines and a decreasing recoil, at the cost of accuracy and fire rate. So if all you want is to hold left click down forever then a LMG-R is your gun, but the question is why would you do that instead of killing with a single accurate burst?

    Build tips: I'm fond of the light mag (because at 450rpm even 40 rounds are a lot) and of the Jurisdiction barrel (because its range penalty is reduced to 3m); I also wouldn't focus too much on damage, you will often need four bullets anyway. Keep a good hipfire so you don't need to stay too exposed, or your high time-to-kill will be the bane of you.

    Eargasm rating: 8/10. Its firing is reminiscent of a good bass line, but the reloading is hit-and-miss: the clanking metal sounds are as likely to please as to annoy.

  • Heavy Assault Rifle (HAR)



    Level required for GP purchase: 11; also available via 300 GP Grendel chance pack (this will on average be more expensive than a direct purchase) and part of the 2000ZEN Assault Kit package

    Rating: Medium

    Best premade: "Striker"

    General tips: As a heavy gun, the HAR was also hit by the August buff to the speed stat, but not as bad as it could have been. It hipfires worse, but it's far from unusable, and it still has a strong niche as the one fully automatic rifle with a range that can reach over 70m, meaning you can play marksman on the big maps while still adapting to firefights.

    Build tips: Don't put everything into accuracy - the recoil will punish you, whether hipfiring or aiming. A 67-damage build will pubstomp wonderfully, but if you don't need that just make sure you catch most people in four bullets and invest in recoil so you can actually go full-auto with this gun; otherwise you might as well have grabbed a BFR or CR. Oh, and with a 22 base mag size, a +2 ammo tag starts to look real nice.

    Eargasm rating: 9/10. A hefty chug-chug-chug makes you feel every bit of that fat recoil, and the reload sound is so satisfying you'll actually be glad for the small mag size.

  • Burstfire Rifle (BFR)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1

    Rating: Very high

    Best premade: "Fortune"

    General tips: Zombie finally got sick of the three-round bullpup surviving endless nerfs and slapped it with a flat -5 to damage. Guess what? It's still very very good. The insane accuracy while aiming lets it headshot almost as well as the true sniper rifles, and in CQC it still beats the AR/AK on pure DPS (though only by a bit, and it's considerably less accurate). Keep owning face with it, and if anyone complains just type "but it got neeeeeerfeeeed".

    Build tips: No real change here - first you want almost maximum accuracy, then you can invest in damage for CQC or in recoil for easier sniping. Unlike with the AR/AK, it's OK to go under 50 damage.

    Eargasm rating: 7/10. The firing sound itself is nothing to write home about, but when you manage to control the climb in just the right way to get multiple headshot DING!s on a single burst it's one of the best feelings ever.

  • Combat Rifle (CR)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1

    Rating: High

    Best premade: "Tryhard"

    General tips: Who just got its old recoil back? The CR did! And the semi-automatic sniper rifle is now much much scarier, with the way it can easily bodyshot+headshot whole teams much faster than the alternatives. It's not as l33t as OHK'ing with a bolt-action, but it's no less effective. Oh, and you can spam it in CQC if someone sneaks up on you, too.

    Build tips: Minimum recoil, 84 damage, extended mag (and +ammo tag), that's it. Ignore accuracy, aiming will always be accurate; you can sacrifice a little from any of those three pillars to get better hipfire, but the CR will never be more than mediocre in that role so don't sweat it.

    Eargasm rating: 7/10. The bullets make a nice meaty crackling sound. Adequate reload.

  • Bolt-Action Rifle (BAR)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1; also available via 1000 GP Ghost GP Chance pack (this will on average be way more expensive than just buying it directly) and 1500 ZEN Sniper Kit package

    Rating: High

    Best premade: ”Warlord”

    General tips: This is the classic omg360quickscopeOHK gun. Zoom up, shoot (hopefully the head for an instakill in all but exceptional circumstances), dezoom, repeat. There's no bullshit to worry about either, no scope sway or bullet drop, but you also most likely will only get one shot because the HRV (or the blackout bubble) gives your position away. If you can't headshot, leaving enemies at ~20HP so your teammates can mop them up is still good courtesy.

    Build tips: You want 180 damage or just under, more than that and you get hard penalties to accuracy; the 'regular' accuracy stat is irrelevant as it only affects hipfire. Recoil, conversely, is critical as it affects your firing rate, so you want it as high as you can; finally, runspeed affects scope-in time but only a little so don't worry too much about it. Scopes no longer have unique scope-in times, so you may now go with whatever you prefer (IR included!). Finally, +AMMO TAG FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

    Eargasm rating: 8/10. While the reload sound is a little fussy and creaky, the solid BLAM of the firing is worth the ticket on its own. Particularly when you spot a group of enemies and mow them down in quick succession, you will feel an angel of death.

  • Anti-Materiel Rifle (AMR)



    Level required for GP purchase: 35; also available via 3995 ZEN Evacuation pack

    Rating: Low-medium

    Best premade: N/A

    General tips: Pro: any hit is an instakill, 3x damage to hardsuits and tanks, your melee attack is a punch. Con: useless hipfire, limited ammo, 1s scope-in time, 4-5s reload time per shot, inaccurate enough to occasionally miss (unless you crouch). If that sounds harsh, it is; a CR or BAR will generally get a lot more kills, although the ability to near-guarantee stopping high-value targets (flag carriers etc.) is awesome in some game modes. Another hidden benefit: no gun will get you called a noob and/or fag quite as much :haw:

    Build tips: Pick one of the heavy stocks, ignore speed - you should be switching to your secondary whenever you need to move anyway. In fact, the most important build tips is to make sure you have a good and versatile secondary, and that you're really really good with it.

    Eargasm rating: 10/10. Fires like the Hand of God and reloads like the Harbinger of Doom.


Secondary Weapons

  • Machine Pistol (MP)



    Level required for GP purchase: 26

    Rating: High

    Best premade: "Reaver"

    General tips: The definition of “spray-and-pray”, this little beast basically demands an extended mag to do its job, and even so you should not expect to kill more than one guy before needing a reload. Still, if you like consistency, it’s hard not to land at least a few bullets.

    Build tips: Extended mag, damage muzzle. Yawn.

    Eargasm rating: 6/10. It's not as bad as the SMG's wet fart, but it's still at least a mouth fart.

  • Shotgun



    Level required for GP purchase: 20

    Rating: Very high

    Best premade: N/A (in Practice mode some bots carry the "Metal Storm")

    General tips: Point somewhere between the neck and upper chest, fire, and you have a good chance of killing in one blast, and certainly in two. Try not to miss too much, because the fire rate and mag size will make you pay for it, but otherwise you’re golden.

    Build tips: Pick up a grip (oddly enough, a straight upgrade), a damage barrel, and choose if you want a magazine (for faster reload) or manual shell load (lighter, lets you fire in mid-animation). The stock doesn’t matter all that much as long as you avoid the ones with really crazy recoil.

    Eargasm rating: 10/10. KA-BLAAAAM!

  • Shotgun AR-K (SARK)




    Level required for GP purchase: 26

    Rating: Medium-low

    Best premade: N/A

    General tips: Half-sized shells firing at twice the rate in automatic mode may sound like a fair trade compared to its pump-action cousin, but losing the one-hit-kills is a big loving deal. The best way to use the SARK that I've found is to always go for headshots, taking advantage of the fact that a miss isn't nearly as punishing as it is for a regular shotgun.

    Build tips: Damage barrel is a must, as is an extended if not even drum mag, because the manual loading is MUCH slower than on the normal shottie. As for stocks, recoil reduction is somewhat useful, while accuracy makes very little difference; speed might actually be best so you can close in a bit faster.

    Eargasm rating: 2/10. I owe my apologies to the SMG and MP, this is what a fart gun actually sounds like.

  • Burstfire Pistol (BFP)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1

    Rating: Medium

    Best premade: "Cyclone"

    General tips: Nowhere near as lethal as the shotgun, this P226 knockoff is able to reach about twice as far while still killing in only two 3-round bursts, making it a decent if unexciting option.

    Build tips: Extended mag recommended, although magnum is an option; you have the speed to spare. Scope choice is awkward due to a lack of stocks - open scopes will look tiny, while even the weakest closed scopes are probably too strong. Personally I'd just go scopeless for the looks, but a 2x IR scope to take out cloaked stalkers is probably the winning options.

    Eargasm rating: 7/10. Nothing amazing, but the way this little bugger spews out upwards of 120 damage like it was no big deal really clicks for me.

  • Light Pistol (LP)



    Level required for GP purchase: Default

    Rating: Very low

    Best premade: Don't.

    General tips: If you like how it plays, save up money for a heavy pistol receiver, which is better in almost every way. Either that or make the 873rd thread in the official forums suggesting buff ideas.

    Eargasm rating: 6/10. It gets style points because with a silencer it will make you feel like an assassin with its nigh-inaudible puff (and it’s a good e-peen challenge, too).

  • Heavy Pistol (HP)



    Level required for GP purchase: 1

    Rating: Low

    Best premade: "Mauler"

    General tips: Being better than the light pistol is no big praise, and the heavy pistol is still only decent at best, with limited range and limited damage. Its intended role was probably as a middle ground between the shotgun and the revolver, but it is so much less lethal that no amount of versatility can make up for it. At least it looks cool.

    Build tips: You definitely want a barrelled setup (also called a carbine) for at least 53-54 damage, and for maximum tacticool points. Extended mag necessary, as usual. Make sure your spread-move is under 3°, you will still primarily hipfire this.

    Eargasm rating: 7/10. Probably the closest to a classic “BANG! BANG!” in this game.

  • Snub 260



    Level required for GP purchase: 37

    Rating: Medium-high

    Best premade: N/A

    General tips: A revolver with less damage and the inability to mount a scope, but a much higher fire rate, it’s a great weapon for people who can control their spamming and a great trap for spammers who will get themselves killed while reloading.

    Build tips: The Precision mag turns it into the longest-range secondary in the game, though the lack of a scope means it’s much much harder to make use of that range compared to the revolver. The High-Caliber mag turns it from a three-shotter into a two-shotter, but loses you accuracy, recoil, and most importantly three bullets, making it even more unforgiving; even so, it’s still most likely a good trade. Magnum is sort of halfway between regular and HC, though IMO not worth the expense.

    Eargasm rating: 8/10. Less meaty than the revolver, but still pleasantly loud, particularly when spammed.

  • Revolver



    Level required for GP purchase: 5

    Rating: Very high

    Best premade: None, they all suck. Rent the receiver (and a scope).

    General tips: Two bullets to the body will kill anything, at a respectable range, with a more than respectable accuracy; what this means is that this gun will serve you well as long as you don’t screw it up by spamming it like it was a heavy pistol or something.

    Build tips: Open scopes will look tiny, so look to closed scopes for this (either a 3x or the IR 2x, because its range is still limited). If you're making GBS threads GP out of your rear end, magnum ammo is a marginal but welcome upgrade.

    Eargasm rating: 9/10. Bodyshot them and you'll feel like Dirty Harry; headshot them and you'll feel like Wild Bill Hickok. Sweet rolling reload, too.

  • Breech-loaded pistol (BLP)



    Level required for GP purchase: 36; also available in the 3995ZEN Evacuation pack

    Rating: Not really applicable

    Best premade: N/A

    General tips: This is a tool more than a weapon, and only to be paired with a primary that reloads very quickly. With an explosive shell, it’s basically like having three weaker, un-cookable grenades; make sure to aim, and remember that they’re probably better at delaying a pursuer or un-nesting a camper than they are at actually killing people. The incendiary shells can only kill people on a direct hit, making them much worse, but they gain the ability to burn hardsuit pilots, saving you a depot slot. Never use the scattershot round, get a shotgun instead if that's what you want.

    Eargasm rating: 7/10. It doesn't actually make much sound at all; the fun comes from the shell blowing up with a figurative trollface, or sizzling as it puts your enemy on medium-rare.

NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Nov 8, 2013

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Heroes

If you’re not looking to sink your time into the customization aspects of the game, “Hero” characters are available for :20bux:, and come already equipped with fully customized weapons and armor, as well as a variety of gear and depot items.

Three heroes, Grendel, Ghost and Crusher, are available through a funbux lottery as well. In addition, every two weeks a different hero is available for free to all players (look for the "Featured Hero Pack" in the mini-market).

Almost all of them have alternate skins available; some can be purchased straight-up for $5, while the pimper ones must be acquired through a lottery of $1 “chance packs” (where the top prize is both the hero and the luxury skin) that might or might not be an exercise in frustration.

As long as you have a hero selected:

  • Your armour and body camo are fixed to the hero's. You may still equip any trophies you have
  • Your tactical gear (backpack) is fixed to the hero's
  • Your gear slots can be filled as you wish, and you will have the hero's own gear available for free
  • You will gain a sixth depot slot which is fixed to the hero's depot item
  • You will gain an extra weapon loadout which is fixed to the hero's weapons. You may not customise these weapons in any way, not even tags or camos
  • The top slot of your taunt wheel will be fixed to the hero's unique taunt



Grendel: An excellent fattie build, Grendel comes with THE SHIELD :black101:, an excellent grenade collection and one of the best depot items in the game (the Minigun). His weapon loadout is no longer what it once was, unfortunately, since both LMGs and heavy pistols perform pretty badly, but that's not the main point of a hero. Overall a strong choice if you don't mind being the turtle of the team.

Note: In addition to the :20bux: option, Grendel is also available through GP, via the Chance Pack lottery (300GP per pack, also has a chance of getting a Heavy Assault Rifle and a bunch of temporary high-level items).



MARS: Formerly infamous for an 'impossible' headshot-reduction stat (it couldn't be otherwise achieved, until the recent release of some new helmets), MARS doesn't have much else to its name. With a crappy backpack, a depot item that's already in the default compilation, a terrible primary weapon that's probably worse than your starting gun in everything but the scope, and a secondary weapon that's merely OK, there's very little reason to choose MARS as your hero. Grendel does pretty much everything better.



Viper: The rear end in a top hat hero, Viper combines a speedy build with an invisibility cloak and a machete to go around filleting people out of nowhere from Day 1 (it’s also been reported that he switches weapons faster than normal, which if correct further helps the uncloak -> backstab strategy). This is going to be criminally hilarious fun against newbies and far, far weaker against experienced players who know to keep an eye out for cloak users (and at very high levels may have access to infrared scopes that reveal you). Still, when you throw in the also extremely fun grenade launcher as bonus depot item, Viper remains a pretty good hero. It's only a pity that his 'infected' gimmick condemns his weapons to uselessness (toxic ammo is terrible), so rent any of the premade SMGs instead.



Duchess: First, if you splurge for the premium skin, expect a "BOOBIES!" comment in every other match you play, which may or may not be worth the 'distraction' tactical advantage. With that said, Duchess is a sniper heroine that gives you almost everything you need to do the job: you have a decent bolt-action rifle, lightning-fast HRV recharge for near-constant target awareness, a HRV blackout to hide your camping spot, a respawn beacon to return to that camping spot when you die, and the air bombardment item to pull your weight in objective modes where sniping is just not good enough. The "almost" part is that your secondary weapon is a revolver that's gimped by inefficient incendiary ammo, and that your armour is a speed-oriented build that will die to enemy snipers on a bodyshot. Still, in this game even a dedicated sniper has a use for high mobility, and with all the other perks Duchess earns a solid thumbs up.



Deacon: The "engineer hero" is unfortunately stuck without all that much engineering to do. His Repair Tool will make you the MVP of the Siege gamemode, and the best friend of any hardsuit pilot you might happen to get in your team, but that's where its utility ends; ok, you can exit and repair your own hardsuit, but that's risky and if you’re doing well you should be able to afford a new one quickly enough. Throw in a godawful depot item and a thoroughly mediocre combat rifle as a weapon, and even his well-balanced stats (including a noticeable speed bonus, at the cost of slightly worse armour and HRV) and solid gear selection aren't enough to make Deacon good.



Lilith: Unlike Deacon, "Hardsuit Pilot" Lilith is a heroine that pulls off her gimmick as well as one could expect. Her HS Battle Mode backpack is a significant buff to your mech's survivability, and her weapon / gear selection represents a cool (if not terribly efficient) subtheme: four grenades that blind your enemies, plus a good TSMG with electro ammo that will deal bonus damage to blinded enemies. Pity her revolver went with the pointless incendiary ammo instead, but she also comes with excellent tanky stats (her fancy helmet provides both great armour and great HRV, at the cost of some stamina) and a strong bonus depot item so something had to give I guess. Grendel is still a better "heavy" character all-around, but if you really like stomping around in huge robots Lilith has that niche covered.



Chronos: If Viper is the rear end in a top hat, Chronos is the goodie-two-shoes. With maxed-out movement speed, maxed-out HRV recharge, and a hacking kit as a backpack item, Chronos screams OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE and will earn you a poo poo-ton of points (and therefore XPs), if not a lot of kills and a ton of deaths because you die to a stiff breeze. In DOM and Siege, that is, because in every other mode the hack-a-pack is worth gently caress-all - you're faster at opening doors and stealing empty hardsuits, woo-hoo. Also, your combat rifle is a hilariously terrible weapon that should never ever be used for any reason. Still, DOM is widely considered the best game mode for BLR, so if you find yourself agreeing with that assessment Chronos's dreamy face might be worth your cash. Or if you really like to zip around and throw a bunch of grenades, because currently in the game there is only one build as fast as Chronos and it comes with no gear slots and lower HRV recharge, though that may change in the future (and a slightly slower build with more gear is vastly better anyway).



Lazarus: A less radical attempt than Chronos to do the team-player gimmick, Lazarus retains a very good speed despite having more HP than other fast heroes (at the cost of armour), which makes her a bit more durable but not all that much - mostly she survives an extra bullet from lighter weapons like SMGs. Her equipment is hit-and miss: she carries a revival injector, which is an all-star in any game mode that does not end in “DeathMatch”, but also an uninspiring grenade selection; likewise, she carries a burstfire rifle that is really strong despite the suboptimal build, but also a useless light pistol. And for a depot item, she has either the worst or the best in the game: Health Refill, meaning you essentially get a free slot in which you can put anything you want (but you’ll have to pay for it yourself). All in all, she can be seen as the much, much more boring but somewhat more effective version of Viper.



Artemis: Artemis recently came out of left field to completely steal MARS's turd medal of Shittiest Hero Ever: with the horrible HRV Ping backpack, the worst health rating in the game (200HP), no new gear or depot items, and two thoroughly mediocre guns, I can think of no reason whatsoever to drop $20 on her. You could use that money to upgrade the starter gear with a backpack item, a shotgun and a scope and you'd be much better off. And if you really like to pilot hardsuits, get Lilith instead.



Ghost: Currently Ghost cannot be directly purchased with cash (ZEN), only by getting lucky on his 1000GP chance packs. If he ever becomes available for cash purchase he’ll easily be the best deal of the lineup, since not only does he have exceptionally balanced stats (a little heavier than the default, i.e. just enough to avoid the 200HP bullseye, and high HRV recharge) but his camper-themed equipment selection is a bunch of mostly solid, mostly high-level items, including an Anti-Materiel Rifle (a level 35 item), a Katana (level 37) and a HRV Cloak (a level 38 item that normally can only be rented week-by week). Don't go for him early on, and if you're very high level you can just get the individual items you want, but if you're mid-level with already a good loadout and you're willing to accept the chance of burning twenty to thirty thousand GPs on losing lottery tickets, Ghost can be a way to unlock those fun endgame items really fast.

Oh, and remember how I said "directly"? There is a way to get Ghost with real money, and he will come with a premium skin too, but much like the GP version you'll need to win him through 100ZEN ($1) chance packs. Real-money chance packs are slightly less popular than throat cancer among Blacklight players, but if you're a gambler with a job they could be up your alley.



Crusher: Like Ghost, Crusher cannot be directly purchased with cash (ZEN), but only by getting lucky on his her 1000GP chance packs, or $1 chance packs if you want the premium skin. Unlike Ghost, who shows off all sorts of wacky and tricky high-level gear, Crusher is boring and efficient, with extremely strong tanky stats (the same as Lilith's), a universally useful Heal Injector, a solid assault rifle, and a perfectly serviceable drummed shotgun. Only an EMP grenade for gear, but her depot item is an Ammo Refill so, like Lazarus, she frees you up a slot for whatever you want. "Boring and efficient" also describes her (non-premium) looks which, rather than a unique skin, are just those of an ordinary female character in endgame armour, further establishing her identity as a one-stop cookie-cutter build. And indeed she does represent an attractive option to new players, since she brings maybe 40k GP's worth of useful items to the table and on average it seems to take much less than that to hit a winning pack. Emphasis on "on average", though: you might effectively get a 50% off on your first all-around solid build, or you could throw away your first hard-earned GPs and be left with nothing. On the other side, she does have a monopoly on the "pelvic thrust" taunt...



White Knight: I'm only including him for completeness's sake, since White Knight can currently only be acquired by referring 50+ players to Blacklight, or of course by trading for it with someone else. Like Crusher he comes with a heal injector and all-around solid stats and items, and like Crusher he doesn't actually have a unique 'hero' appearance, wearing instead a bunch of regular armour pieces with a silvery skin. I'll add more details if and when he becomes available to the general public.

The Game Modes



Team Deathmatch: Kill the guys on the orange team, first team to 90 kills or with the most kills at the round’s end wins, you know the drill.

Equipment suggestions: Tank-ish gear (you don’t really need to go anywhere), heal injector, long-range weapons.



Deathmatch: Every man for himself, first man to reach 3000 points or with the highest score at round’s end wins. Beware of playing this mode in small maps (Helodeck and Metro) since they’re not designed to support 16 individual players and will become a spawnkilling fest.

Equipment suggestions: Try a cloak for hunting after the weakest players, or a respawn beacon for some shameless camping. Since you can’t retreat behind friendly lines, high HRV recharge is very useful, as is a quickly-reloading weapon.



Kill Confirmed: Shamelessly cribbed from CoD, it’s a TDM mode in which you must pick up the “dog tags” (skull icons) of killed enemies to score points, and you can pick up the tags of dead teammates to deny points to the enemy team. The benefit is that it makes sniping and camping extremely inefficient without some allies actually fighting in close quarters.

Equipment suggestions: Obviously, CQC weapons and mobility equipment in general are more valuable than usual, as is team support gear since you’ll want to stick together with friends so you can pick up each other’s tags if you die. For the same reason, enemies are likely to be close together and more vulnerable than usual to grenades and LMGs.



Capture the Flag: If you’ve played shooters in the last twenty years you probably know this mode; 5 captures to win. The only tweak is that the flag holder cannot run, meaning he will likely need to be actively supported to make it back home.

Equipment suggestions: The barricade combined with a speed build is highly effective to carry the flag, or to protect the flag carrier. Any static defenses for your flag, from mines to turrets, are welcome. (Place the mine on the ledger-thing right under the flag, so that the icon in the HRV will be partially concealed by the flag marker.) Speedy snipers can perform a valuable role in hunting down enemy flag carriers.



Domination: Three control points spread over the map, hold them to gain points over time, 750 points to win. Here the tweak is that while you can capture points simply by standing nearby, it is much much faster to do a quick hacking minigame to instantly take them. The winning strategy is usually to figure out which two points are easiest to defend together, and focus on those two.

Equipment suggestions: The high-level Firewall Pack is custom-made for this mode, since it both makes hacking much faster and easier, and it increases the duration of the Firewall effect (the time after hacking during which enemies cannot hack the node); however, a Cloak is also fairly effective, since you can still hack a node while invisible. In either case you’ll want to have a speedy build, but a tank who sticks around captured nodes to protect them is also a valuable asset to the team.



NetWar: Currently restricted to the maps ‘Offshore’ and ‘Containment’, NetWar is a fun hybrid of the previous two modes: four nodes can be captured (not hacked) and held for constant point gain, while a neutral flag at the centre of the map can be repeatedly brought to any friendly node for a flat 100 point bonus (you can still run while holding this flag); first team to 1600 points wins. It’s entirely possible to win by holding a single node and monopolising the flag, or vice-versa by never bothering much with the flag and dominating the nodes. Figuring out which objective is best to fight for is half the fun.

Equipment suggestions: You can bring pretty much anything you want and still find a useful role to play. Due to the maps, however, sniper weapons are very good and hardsuits are really awkward.



King of the Hill: Again, this will be familiar to anybody who’s ever played a shooter. There are no special twists, either.

Equipment suggestions: KotH is probably the most “broken” game mode in that there’s a clear choice for equipment: full tank gear, either a revival injector or a barricade (with the heal injector as a tier-2 option), and mass destruction in each and every form available. Every type of grenades, rockets, big-rear end LMGs, hardsuits, and above all airstrikes, whatever: everybody is trying to stay close in a single point so the most BOOM your team can bring, the better. On the plus side, this mode is a lot more fun and balanced with small teams (2 or 3 players).



Siege: This mode has its own map, Nuken. One team is trying to escape with a Scorpion tank, which is armed with a minigun and automatically regenerates if ‘destroyed’, and must pass through (hack) three gates to reach a mysteriously bulletproof transport truck; the other team must stop them and make the timer run out at any of the checkpoints. Then both teams switch places; if both teams succeed or both fail, highest score wins. There are fans who play Pure Siege servers, but in general it’s considered a frustrating mode to play with pubbies since teamwork is so important and bad gear selection can be a considerable handicap (also, it’s a little inefficient at generating GPs).

Equipment suggestions: The map features a mix of tight and open spaces, so having both CQC and long-range weaponry in your loadouts to switch as necessary helps a good deal. When on the offense, the most useful backpacks are a firewall pack to quickly hack gates, a barricade to protect the guy who’s hacking the gate, or a repair tool / hardsuit battle mode to improve the survivability of the Scorpion tank. On the defence, anything that can take down the tank is a winner - the Anti-Materiel Rifle above all, but also airstrikes, hardsuits, railguns, or just a LMG or shotgun loaded with electro ammo - as are toxic grenades, turrets, mines, or other items that can delay the gate hacking by a few precious seconds.

Last Team Standing / Last Man Standing: Multiple rounds, no-respawn tweaks on TDM and DM, respectively. They were introduced with the Onslaught patch and suffer from SEVERE spawn logic problems, so it’s recommended to avoid them for the time being.



Search and Destroy: Of CounterStrike fame, this mode is a favourite of competitive players. A random player in the attacking team carries a bomb, which creates a roughly 3-metre circle of undetectability to the HRV (unless the HRV user is very close), and which must be planted at one of two bomb sites located around the map; the defending team must prevent the bomb from being planted, or failing that defuse it before it explodes. Matches consist of a best-of-ten rounds, each one without respawns; after five rounds, attack and defence switch roles. Somewhat awkward to play with pubbies (especially if a bad player gets the bomb, but at least it can be picked up from their corpse), but not nearly as much as Siege.

Equipment suggestions: The revival injector can get around the no-respawn, although it only works for a short time after death, so it’s a MVP for this mode. Given that the bomb confers HRV cloaking, if you happen to also have a regular cloak you become almost completely invisible which obvious will make the bomb-planting much easier.



Onslaught: The only co-op PvE mode, introduced in the big February patch. Four players are pit against ten waves of “SIVs” aka zombies, dog zombies, zombies holding shields, zombies on fire, and giant zombies, as well as human Order soldiers and armoured soldiers carrying rifles, shotguns, shields, flamethrowers, and rockets. These mobs provide limited CP gain, and only one depot on the huge map is active at a time, so healing and heavy weaponry is very restricted; however, any player can revive fallen teammates (although the process is slow and the time window to do so is limited). You will also have to periodically hack some nodes to progress, and you must complete the whole ten waves in under 30 minutes.

As an extra reward over the regular GP and XP end-of-match gains, enemies drop bronze, silver, or gold tokens, which any player may pick up and are shared by the whole team. After you accumulate ten bronze tokens, even over the course of multiple matches, you gain a 2000 XP token; in the same way ten silver tokens give you a 100GP token, and three gold tokens a 500GP one. You can play Onslaught on four difficulty levels, which provide increasingly better token drops: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Hardcore. Hardcore is just like Hard except you can’t purchase depot items other than refills, and enemies do not take damage from firearms except on headshots :haw: ; however, melee weapons and explosives function normally.

Equipment suggestions specifications: Full tank gear, melee protection patch, incendiary protection patch, a LMG with a quick or incendiary magazine (except maybe for Hardcore), a shotgun with a drum magazine, stun shurikens (use them for the fast 200-damage melee, only throw them against Hulks), :siren: a katana :siren:, and some kind of mass destruction depot item combined with Heavy Weapons Refill; at least two players should carry heal injectors, and at least one player should have a cloak, which makes you invisible to almost all zombies and allows you to hack objectives and revive friendlies with ease. The importance of an optimal build obviously depends heavily on the difficulty level, you can tackle Easy in starter gear with little trouble.

NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Sep 15, 2013

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Reserved for upcoming stuff (the GOON Giveaway, ESL, etc.)

Tempora Mutantur
Feb 22, 2005

My install for BLR got corrupted a while back, and this game is so good that I mourned my loss. I had no idea about the new game modes added, so I'll try to fix it one more time. This'll be awesome since I was capped out and had some nice gear.

Jetamo
Nov 8, 2012

alright.

alright, mate.
Rrrequesting an invite to the EU guild thing, JetamoFPUK is the account.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


Have they had any luck cleaning out the aim botters? I played this ages ago, and it was pretty fun, but it eventually got so that every other game you'd end up against some guy who'd go 50-1 with instant headshots against anybody who didn't manage to grenade him from behind solid cover.

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!
Is there a good reason to use an SMG specced for lower recoil and spread at the cost of damage, and a tanky suit of armor to compensate for my complete lack of tactical awareness? Any particular maps and game-modes I should look into?

Assuming I have the SMG already built, and a couple of heavier-than-standard and lighter-than-standard helmets lying around from promotions and no other pieces of gear, what might be a good build to work towards for a guy who is relatively bad at FPSes but loves them anyways?

Xenaero
Sep 26, 2006


Slippery Tilde
Oops server crash on NA.

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Zaodai posted:

Have they had any luck cleaning out the aim botters? I played this ages ago, and it was pretty fun, but it eventually got so that every other game you'd end up against some guy who'd go 50-1 with instant headshots against anybody who didn't manage to grenade him from behind solid cover.
My experience is that I rarely see aimbotters on the EU server where I typically play, but I semi-regularly run into them when I play US. This may be because in the EU people start calling for votekicks at the slightest suspicion, while in the US I couldn't even get the pubbies to votekick those blatant 50-1 guys.

Artificer posted:

Is there a good reason to use an SMG specced for lower recoil and spread at the cost of damage, and a tanky suit of armor to compensate for my complete lack of tactical awareness? Any particular maps and game-modes I should look into?

Assuming I have the SMG already built, and a couple of heavier-than-standard and lighter-than-standard helmets lying around from promotions and no other pieces of gear, what might be a good build to work towards for a guy who is relatively bad at FPSes but loves them anyways?
SMG recoil is so low that I can barely tell the difference at max recoil, but that may be a personal thing; high accuracy is good (mostly for the range increase) and low damage is probably fine as long as you stay at 38 or higher. Tank build are very good. You'll shine on tight maps (Helo, Metro, Vertigo, Decay); Kill Confirmed is probably the mode most suitable to that playstyle, or you can defend the flag/node in objective modes which few people seem to do. Bring a HRV blackout for the latter.

The classic heavy build is either Fox-Cat or Slant helmet (depending on your HRV needs), Impact/Warzone chest (functionally identical), and Colossus legs because the Diamondback ones have too low stamina.

Jetamo
Nov 8, 2012

alright.

alright, mate.
I also recently got Duchess and a special skin out of nowhere woo. Literally first Chance Pack i tried.

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

NihilCredo posted:


SMG recoil is so low that I can barely tell the difference at max recoil, but that may be a personal thing; high accuracy is good (mostly for the range increase) and low damage is probably fine as long as you stay at 38 or higher. Tank build are very good. You'll shine on tight maps (Helo, Metro, Vertigo, Decay); Kill Confirmed is probably the mode most suitable to that playstyle, or you can defend the flag/node in objective modes which few people seem to do. Bring a HRV blackout for the latter.

The classic heavy build is either Fox-Cat or Slant helmet (depending on your HRV needs), Impact/Warzone chest (functionally identical), and Colossus legs because the Diamondback ones have too low stamina.

Gotcha, thanks. I'll try out the Blaster and see how I do with a higher recoil SMG. I used to be really bad at ADSing but now with a lot more PS2 gametime I've gotten used to ADSing more, so I think the COF on a gun is less important.

Less, so I'm gonna be sticking with the SMG for a while, I think. I can't fight long-medium range at all.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


NihilCredo posted:

My experience is that I rarely see aimbotters on the EU server where I typically play, but I semi-regularly run into them when I play US. This may be because in the EU people start calling for votekicks at the slightest suspicion, while in the US I couldn't even get the pubbies to votekick those blatant 50-1 guys.

Sounds about the same as it used to be on the US server then. Saves me the trouble of reinstalling. Thanks.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug
Is this still populated? I played over the summer and had a LOT of fun, but haven't touched it in months.

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Artificer posted:

Gotcha, thanks. I'll try out the Blaster and see how I do with a higher recoil SMG. I used to be really bad at ADSing but now with a lot more PS2 gametime I've gotten used to ADSing more, so I think the COF on a gun is less important.

Less, so I'm gonna be sticking with the SMG for a while, I think. I can't fight long-medium range at all.
Myself, I actually started being a lot better at CQC once I learned not to ADS so much. A rule of thumb I use is to only ADS if (a) I have at least partial cover, or (b) if the target isn't looking at me. Or if I'm using guns like LMGs and sniper rifles which are rubbish at strafe-shotting, obviously, but that isn't your case.

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Is this still populated? I played over the summer and had a LOT of fun, but haven't touched it in months.
It hasn't grown as much as it should have, at least until the Onslaught patch, but it's been pretty stable. Populated enough that at peak hours most servers are full, and that even at the lowest (early morning) there's still a few full servers going on.

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

NihilCredo posted:

Myself, I actually started being a lot better at CQC once I learned not to ADS so much. A rule of thumb I use is to only ADS if (a) I have at least partial cover, or (b) if the target isn't looking at me. Or if I'm using guns like LMGs and sniper rifles which are rubbish at strafe-shotting, obviously, but that isn't your case.


Yeah, I figure even with a max recoil SMG I should do okay now, especially if it still remains accurate (smaller COF?). Is there a way to get good damage and accuracy while having higher recoil?

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Artificer posted:

Yeah, I figure even with a max recoil SMG I should do okay now, especially if it still remains accurate (smaller COF?). Is there a way to get good damage and accuracy while having higher recoil?
Rift (++dmg) or Two-Step (+dmg +acc) muzzles, and V2 Folding stock.

On some guns Magnum ammo also allows you to trade a lot of recoil and weight for a bit of damage and range, but that's not an especially good deal with the SMG, mostly because you'll be in the thick of the fight so a quick or extended mag is too useful to drop.

Cool Chulainn
Sep 5, 2011

Who's up for a game of Swords & Speedballs?
Great Game, Great OP. Everyone should try this at least.
Haven't played in a while, is the CR better now? I remember it being inaccurate bullshit when a quick semi-auto sniper would be useful.

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

NihilCredo posted:

Rift (++dmg) or Two-Step (+dmg +acc) muzzles, and V2 Folding stock.

On some guns Magnum ammo also allows you to trade a lot of recoil and weight for a bit of damage and range, but that's not an especially good deal with the SMG, mostly because you'll be in the thick of the fight so a quick or extended mag is too useful to drop.

http://imgur.com/YDzQnkK

http://imgur.com/mBi5H0T

Current build as it stands. I'm not high enough level to do what you've suggested, but I think the gun at least will hold me as well as I can hope until I get to level 28-30.

Armor, however, I think I'm going to go for the Guardian Warmonger chestpiece and I think that should be a decent build, at least for a level 15. ArmCom Piranha legs would round out the set but I'm not sure I need health THAT high, unless maybe you think that's a good idea. Critiques and suggestions?

Baron Fuzzlewhack
Sep 22, 2010

ALIVE ENOUGH TO DIE
Holy poo poo that's a great OP. Thanks, Nihil. Also I'm active (Fuzzlewhack) but I'm not around as often as I used to be.

Fun game with lots to try. But, really, there is only one option:

THE GOON WALL :black101:

net cafe scandal
Mar 18, 2011

That's one loving hell of an OP.

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!
Okay, nevermind. Buy the time I earn enough GP to buy the newbie equipment I'll be well on my way to level 28-30 anyways so I'll just stick with what I have for now and just save up.

Thanks for the advice and great OP.

SwitchbladeKult
Apr 4, 2012



"The warmth of life has entered my tomb!"
Nice thread title :smug:

E:

In honor of the new thread my builds!

Guns:
http://imgur.com/a/OgmMe

Armors:
http://imgur.com/a/q4XnP

SwitchbladeKult fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Mar 25, 2013

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Oh neat! In honour of the new thread, Zombie has fired a :siren: +100% XP / +50% GP WEEKEND :siren:

Start time: 5:00 PM PST (3/22/2013)
End time: 11:59 PM PST (3/24/2013)

Habermann
Nov 3, 2007

by Lowtax

NihilCredo posted:

Oh neat! In honour of the new thread, Zombie has fired a :siren: +100% XP / +50% GP WEEKEND :siren:

Gee, it sure was swell of them to tip their hat to us like that! :downs:

Hello to all the new people looking at this thread, by the way. Since you probably don't know, I'm the guy who's sunk over $500 into this game (Before those fancy "Onslaught" packs came out). Please don't let your children grow up to be like me.

Pseudophile
Dec 25, 2007

I haven't played this in a few months, patching tonight and I'll give it a whirl tomorrow after work.

I remember this game being a really fun way to kill a half hour or so. I love the aesthetic and gimmick, plus I'm a sucker for build a gun and good customization.

Inzombiac
Mar 19, 2007

PARTY ALL NIGHT

EAT BRAINS ALL DAY


Habermann posted:

Gee, it sure was swell of them to tip their hat to us like that! :downs:

Hello to all the new people looking at this thread, by the way. Since you probably don't know, I'm the guy who's sunk over $500 into this game (Before those fancy "Onslaught" packs came out). Please don't let your children grow up to be like me.

You have to be a special kind of stupid to do something like this. Jesus.

I'm getting back into the game after being away for months. Hope it is still fun!

net cafe scandal
Mar 18, 2011

Habermann posted:

Hello to all the new people looking at this thread, by the way. Since you probably don't know, I'm the guy who's sunk over $500 into this game (Before those fancy "Onslaught" packs came out). Please don't let your children grow up to be like me.

You have completely lost your mind. Whatever used to be there can only have been replaced by a howling hungry void.

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!
How do you make sure the sensitivities of your game is right? I can never tell if I'm turning to quickly or slowly. Adjusting things just seems to constantly blow past the sweet spot.

Habermann
Nov 3, 2007

by Lowtax

Inzombiac posted:

You have to be a special kind of stupid to do something like this. Jesus.

If buying every camouflage that incorporates the colour pink makes me dumb, I don't want to be smart. :colbert:

But seriously: This is probably my favorite competitive FPS I've played in the past 20 years. I am totally content knowing that my money went towards supporting the devs, and happy to have almost completely avoided the rental system over the course of the year I've spent playing this game.

That being said, nobody here should ever consider putting as much money into this game as I have [so far]. Get the gold Onslaught pack now while you still can.

Artificer posted:

How do you make sure the sensitivities of your game is right? I can never tell if I'm turning to quickly or slowly. Adjusting things just seems to constantly blow past the sweet spot.

Are you asking what your rotation-per-mouse-movement should be? Or are you having trouble getting the game to lock on to your personal preference?

If you're asking about the former, my ideal mouse sensitivity is whatever can bring me around 180° from moving my mouse from the center of my mousepad to the edge. You should never have to turn more than 180° in a single mouse movement (Unless there's some 360° no-scope exploit in this game I'm not privy to), and any less than that leaves you unable to quickly respond to attacks from behind.

Miss-Bomarc
Aug 1, 2009
A pickup from the old thread:

Lima posted:

I got that glacial Grendel skin. Want to trade it for an IOU? I don't really need any of the current stuff :)
Sure, keep me on your list. IGN: "DensityDuck".

Also, let me know if you want anything contributed to the Goon Giveaway Fund.

CapitanGarlic
Feb 29, 2004

Much, much more.
I may have found a secret-tier strategy (against bads or the easily confused):

For me at least I use the shotgun entirely from the hip, so I slapped a sniper scope on it for kicks. This has frequently gotten confused comments in-game and at least once a free chatkill, but more than that if I have a round where I'm doing exceptionally well with it people will kill me, pick it up, and try to use it through the scope to hilariously terrible effect. It's my way of striking back from the grave, only in a completely inefficient manner.

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

average_pubbie.gif :

mahazuhul
Feb 15, 2006
Great OP :)

One note on the White Knight hero: he has 15% armor, as far as I can tell the one stat that sets him apart from a normal dude wearing the same gear.

Ciaphas
Nov 20, 2005

> BEWARE, COWARD :ovr:


It's been a long drat time since I've played this. Since my account hasn't purchased anything and isn't a very high level, is it possible to 'reset' it so in exchange for having to do the treadmill again I can get the free rentals?

SwitchbladeKult
Apr 4, 2012



"The warmth of life has entered my tomb!"

Ciaphas posted:

It's been a long drat time since I've played this. Since my account hasn't purchased anything and isn't a very high level, is it possible to 'reset' it so in exchange for having to do the treadmill again I can get the free rentals?

Not that I'm aware of. You can delete the account, I think, but eh I don't know if doing that just to get the free early level rents is worth it since 'spacebucks' are so easy to get.

gwrtheyrn
Oct 21, 2010

AYYYE DEEEEE DUBBALYOO DA-NYAAAAAH!

Ciaphas posted:

It's been a long drat time since I've played this. Since my account hasn't purchased anything and isn't a very high level, is it possible to 'reset' it so in exchange for having to do the treadmill again I can get the free rentals?

I'd say it's not terribly worth it since renting a full premade is only 200GP a day, which you can get in 1-2 games

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Ciaphas posted:

It's been a long drat time since I've played this. Since my account hasn't purchased anything and isn't a very high level, is it possible to 'reset' it so in exchange for having to do the treadmill again I can get the free rentals?
Nope, the only thing you can reset are stats.

You could make a new account, I suppose. Devs have wink-wink-nudge-nudge said that making one alt account per person is fine (and if you quit your old one there would be no problem at all, I imagine). But first check in your email if they sent you the Reinforcement Pack for people who've been away for several months, I don't know if they still do those or if they've just lengthened the requirements but if you got it then it's full of goodies.

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Habermann
Nov 3, 2007

by Lowtax
I was reminded how lovely the clan system is in this game today, when I came on 30 minutes too late to catch two of you guys who sent your invite requests in by mail. I added both of you as friends, and will send you your invites whenever I happen to catch you in-game.

On the bright side, I finally managed to be online at the same time as a guy who I'm pretty sure has waited close to a month to get his invite, so that's a success story!

Habermann fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Mar 24, 2013

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